Alfre Woodard Quotes

I believe movies are better, the less you know going in.

That's what everyone said attracted them to Lantana - I call it an adult mystery, because it's not a thriller in the sense of that other way, but it is a mystery.

At one time, whenever the hell it was, they wanted a character to come in and stir up the pot. They brought me in for 8-10 episodes and said we'll try it for that.

When the audience first sees Cooper talking into his tape recorder at the beginning of 'Twin Peaks,' I think that's the greatest introduction to a character I've seen in my career. It tells you everything about the guy right there in a few minutes as well as bringing up a whole load of questions.

You just drop a character like this that and the other and it's done.

J.K. Rowling said Bellatrix's role was going to be significant in the last one, when I showed some reluctance in playing a tiny bit part. Up front, they said, 'You're very significant in the last one.' But significant could mean a lot of things. That could just mean a significant plot point. Doesn't necessarily equal big part.

I just love the storyline, I thought it was hilarious - I loved that part when we opened the door, we all look ahead and we have to look down and see that we're actually dealing with this little boy who did this horrible thing of ordering a wife through e-mail.

I love a really good storyline.

It doesn't matter to me if it has a surprise ending or not. I usually go for the material or the project.

You just never know what the grand plan is on 'Dexter,' so I didn't know if I was going to make it to the next episode, let alone the next season!

I think of my books now as suspense novels, usually with a love story incorporated. They're absolutely a lot harder to write than romances. They take more plotting and real character development.

I think that episode in the third season was great. I'm really glad that we did that. He got to sleep with Sydney and kill Evil Francie and go on a mission and pretend he's a rock star.

The 'Lost' pilot was wide enough and included enough things so that when Season Five came, and we spent half of the year in 1973, nobody cried foul. It felt like it was already a part of the DNA.

So I decided to move that scene in the doctor's office to two-thirds into the movie, after the viewers had come to know Ryan and Ali and share in their happiness.

Doc Savage, Indiana Jones, Flash Gordon... these were the kinds of characters I was thinking about as I was developing Jonas Quantum because there aren't that many brand new characters being introduced anymore.

I was so obsessed by Lisbeth Salander and all the characters, but of course if you're going to write a crime novel worthy of Stieg Larsson, you need a plot, don't you?

It may sound surprising, but a joke and a crime novel work in very much the same way. The comedian/writer leads their audience along the garden path. The audience know what's coming, or at least they think they do until they get hit from a direction they were not expecting.

The predictable thing about 'The Good Wife' is how unpredictable 'The Good Wife' is.

Things that go on at Happy Times are very funny this year, and if you were watching last year, some of the people you saw then as basically extras emerge as real characters in their own right this season, at least to some degree.

'Lost' is about a bunch of people stranded on an island. It's compelling, but kind of tiny. But what sustains you are the characters.

We should just go back to, like, episode 30 and re-break from there and just make it a spaceship. That would be the unexpected reboot of 'Lost.'

I kind of thought the writers were starting to take Taylor and make her kind of down and dirty.

I start with a character and a situation, but I don't know what's going to happen until I write it. Sometimes things happen that surprise me.

I like the 'Keystone Kops' storyline. It didn't actually go quite the way I wanted to, but it was another great way to show how different life was in these two different corners of the DCU, being on the ground in these different areas.

What I love about 'The Good Wife' is that it's not straightforward.